The traditional software development model commonly named “waterfall” is unable to cope with the increasing functionality and complexity of modern embedded systems. In addition, it is unable to support the ability f...The traditional software development model commonly named “waterfall” is unable to cope with the increasing functionality and complexity of modern embedded systems. In addition, it is unable to support the ability for businesses to quickly respond to new market opportunities due to changing requirements. As a response, the software development community developed the Agile Methodologies (e.g., extreme Programming, Scrum) which were also adopted by the Embedded System community. However, failures and bad experiences in applying Agile Methodologies to the development of embedded systems have not been reported in the literature. Therefore, this paper contributes a detailed account of our first-time experiences adopting an agile approach in the prototype development of a wireless environment data acquisition system in an academic environment. We successfully applied a subset of the extreme Programming (XP) methodology to our software development using the Python programming language, an experience that demonstrated its benefits in shaping the design of the software and also increasing productivity. We used an incremental development approach for the hardware components and adopted a “cumulative testing” approach. For the overall development process management, however, we concluded that the Promise/Commitment-Based Project Management (PB-PM/CBPM) was better suited. We discovered that software and hardware components of embedded systems are best developed in parallel or near-parallel. We learned that software components that pass automated tests may not survive in the tests against the hardware. Throughout this rapid prototyping effort, factors like team size and our availability as graduate students were major obstacles to fully apply the XP methodology.展开更多
Direct volume rendering （DVR） is a powerful visualization technique which allows users to effectively explore and study volumetric datasets. Different transparency settings can be flexibly assigned to different stru...Direct volume rendering （DVR） is a powerful visualization technique which allows users to effectively explore and study volumetric datasets. Different transparency settings can be flexibly assigned to different structures such that some valuable information can be revealed in direct volume rendered images （DVRIs）. However, end-users often feel that some risks are always associated with DVR because they do not know whether any important information is missing from the transparent regions of DVRIs. In this paper, we investigate how to semi-automatically generate a set of DVRIs and also an animation which can reveal information missed in the original DVRIs and meanwhile satisfy some image quality criteria such as coherence. A complete framework is developed to tackle various problems related to the generation and quality evaluation of visibility-aware DVRIs and animations. Our technique can reduce the risk of using direct volume rendering and thus boost the confidence of users in volume rendering systems.展开更多
文摘The traditional software development model commonly named “waterfall” is unable to cope with the increasing functionality and complexity of modern embedded systems. In addition, it is unable to support the ability for businesses to quickly respond to new market opportunities due to changing requirements. As a response, the software development community developed the Agile Methodologies (e.g., extreme Programming, Scrum) which were also adopted by the Embedded System community. However, failures and bad experiences in applying Agile Methodologies to the development of embedded systems have not been reported in the literature. Therefore, this paper contributes a detailed account of our first-time experiences adopting an agile approach in the prototype development of a wireless environment data acquisition system in an academic environment. We successfully applied a subset of the extreme Programming (XP) methodology to our software development using the Python programming language, an experience that demonstrated its benefits in shaping the design of the software and also increasing productivity. We used an incremental development approach for the hardware components and adopted a “cumulative testing” approach. For the overall development process management, however, we concluded that the Promise/Commitment-Based Project Management (PB-PM/CBPM) was better suited. We discovered that software and hardware components of embedded systems are best developed in parallel or near-parallel. We learned that software components that pass automated tests may not survive in the tests against the hardware. Throughout this rapid prototyping effort, factors like team size and our availability as graduate students were major obstacles to fully apply the XP methodology.
基金supported in part by Hong Kong RGC CERG under Grant No. 618705
文摘Direct volume rendering （DVR） is a powerful visualization technique which allows users to effectively explore and study volumetric datasets. Different transparency settings can be flexibly assigned to different structures such that some valuable information can be revealed in direct volume rendered images （DVRIs）. However, end-users often feel that some risks are always associated with DVR because they do not know whether any important information is missing from the transparent regions of DVRIs. In this paper, we investigate how to semi-automatically generate a set of DVRIs and also an animation which can reveal information missed in the original DVRIs and meanwhile satisfy some image quality criteria such as coherence. A complete framework is developed to tackle various problems related to the generation and quality evaluation of visibility-aware DVRIs and animations. Our technique can reduce the risk of using direct volume rendering and thus boost the confidence of users in volume rendering systems.
